Column

Inside track

“Watch out for this young guy Lara,” said Dr Jamie Astaphan, swigging his beer. We were at the beachside resort in St Kitts where the Indian cricket team was playing the under-25 West Indies team. “He’s a genius waiting to explode,” he added.

Hardcore sports buffs might remember Dr Astaphan as the doctor who administered steroids to sprinter Ben Johnson in the quest of an Olympic gold. Johnson beat Carl Lewis in what was touted the Race of the Century at the 1988 Seoul Games, only to be trapped by a lab assistant, who found banned substances in his post-race urine sample. Johnson went into disgrace and Dr Astaphan retired to a condominium in St Kitts, waiting for the storm to die out.

That Dr Astaphan was also an authority on cricket was established over the next few days when I watched Lara play. He made a century - a dazzling one — and the Indian camp was humming about the potential of this 20-year-old left-hander with twinkling feet and a wondrous repertoire of strokes.

There is a sense of spontaneity and joy about Caribbean cricketers unlike any other. Cricket, at least till the 90s, was an expression of their identity, and Lara’s was unmistakably West Indian.

During the match, I spoke to him. Lara’s Trinidad accent and a pronounced nasal twang made it difficult to understand everything he said, but some of it was clear: “I enjoy batting. I love the sound of bat on ball. I want to play for West Indies for a long time.”

In the 16 years since, he has shown that he is a man of his word; he has batted in a manner which has made it impossible for cricket aficionados to ignore the query whether he isn’t the greatest batsman of all time after Sir Donald Bradman. I can already hear some strong protests building up, but the premise is certainly not sacrilegious.

Bradman’s genius — and abiding status — in the game is defined by a single statistic: his mind-boggling Test average of 99.94. Once Bradman takes pole position, the debate becomes intense. Each person, city, community, country has a favourite. Unlike in Bradman’s case, statistics don’t provide a clear answer, only indicate merit.

It would be impossible, therefore, to ratify Lara better than Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Ranji, Trumper, Hutton, Compton, Barrington, Boycott, Richards, Gavaskar, Hanif, Miandad, Tendulkar, Waugh, Dravid to name a handful of batsmen with colossal records. The issue is too subjective to be resolved by statistics in any case. It can only be done through a ‘feel’ for the game, or a solid, expert appraisal.

I got the latter when Lara scored a record 375 in 1994. Sir Gary Sobers, whose record he had broken, said: “Brian Lara is a batsman who plays cricket the way it should be played, he rarely uses his pads but hits the ball with the bat. He is a pride and joy to watch.”

There couldn’t have been a simpler definition of a genius. The issue in cricket is surely not only about scoring runs and creating records, but also about the joy a player provides spectators.

Last week Lara became the highest scorer in Test cricket, breaking Allan Border’s record with a double hundred (in his 36th year I might add). That’s a great achievement, but it’s only a figure nonetheless. Keep Bradman out of the discussion, I ask myself if anybody has batted better. I am struggling for an answer. Does anybody have it?